In May we enjoyed a week away with sister Gail and her husband Janos to the
Dordogne region of France. This is relatively easy to get to - just a shortish
flight to Bordeaux and then about 3 hours in a hire car due east. In some ways
it isn’t too different from the area of England where we live: very rural, lots
of woods, hamlets and lots of English – there are thousands of them lurking in
this area. Luckily it was still too early for the main tourist season so
everywhere was very quiet, including the well maintained and picturesque rural
roads with barely a car to be seen. So unlike the very crowded south of
England.
The area is
incredibly scenic and clearly very popular in the summertime given the number
of restaurants, camping grounds and accommodation signs all over the
countryside. Few large towns, forests everywhere, and two big rivers snaking
through gorges. This is the home of Foie Gras, walnut plantations and
prehistoric cave dwellings. And lots of chateaux.
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| Need to improve my hedge-cutting ... |
Let’s start
with food. French fare ranges from the sublime to subpar. Except for the larger
towns or tourist areas, getting a basic takeaway sandwich/filled baguette isn’t
always that easy, and a dry baguette with a thin slice of ham isn’t that
appealing. Luckily there are plenty of restaurants around if you don’t mind
spending just a little more. But what is it about the French and their coffee?
If you are not into an espresso then it is either a long black (a café américain)
or similar with milk (café au lait), neither impressive. Don’t even think about
a cappuccino (they have heard of them but can’t make them properly) or a latte,
flat white etc. Luckily the compensation is the cheap wine. Our real find of
the trip was when things were getting a little desperate for Janos’ birthday
dinner. We headed out to a local restaurant that we had tried a few days
earlier only to find it closed due to lack of reservations. We then covered
quite some distance on back roads to where we had heard there was another,
but that turned out to be a bit over our budget. Using the GPS to find us a another
restaurant we spent more time on the tiny lanes before arriving at a
lonely hotel in the middle of nowhere. But the restaurant was open, prices were
good (23 euros for the 5-course menu) and we proceeded to stuff ourselves with
soup, a variety of foie gras, duck, more duck and desserts. Stuffed full after
the first two courses we struggled on politely so as not to cause any offence.
Spectacular meal though quite a lot of groaning ensued later.
More irresistible
food was found at the local markets which included numerous foie gras sellers and
everything possible you could make from walnuts, from oil to cakes. Janos usually
managed to get through a meal’s worth of freebie samples from these stalls.
Sadly most of our intake came courtesy of the major supermarkets as we were
self-catering.
Due to the
terrain and the rivers this area was popular with invaders, from the Romans to
the Vikings to the Normans and those nasty English (the ones with the swords,
not the credit cards). Hence there are many castles, forts and fortified
chateaux.
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| Maison Forte de Reignac |
The caves
in the cliffs have made living quarters from prehistoric times to the present. You
can see numerous houses built into the cliffs – not unlike the troglodyte
dwellings we saw along the Loire in France. Many are open to the public and
range from grand houses and churches to prehistoric dwellings. Our favourite
would have been Maison Forte de
Reignac as it was mainly a small chateau backing into many levels of cave.
Inside rooms were furnished in various periods from its history: really, really
interesting, though the torture equipment was somewhat depressing. For
something completely different we saw La Roque Saint-Christophe which is several levels of cave dug along several hundreds of metres of limestone
cliff. Once again inhabited from Neanderthal times until around the 16th C.
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| La Roque Saint-Christophe |
The area is
most famous for its prehistoric rock paintings though. Some of the caves have
only been recently rediscovered (e.g. 100 years ago) and paintings have
deteriorated remarkably in that short time mainly due to the warmth of the
human bodies and the bacteria they carry. To prevent further damage the most
famous, Lascaux, has been
closed and an exact replica built nearby for the tourists. Have a look at some of
the images on the website – they are truly amazing. While this replica cave may
contain some of the best rock art anywhere, we decided that we wouldn’t
actually be seeing the real thing, so we went to Le Font de Gaume instead. Here
visitors are restricted to the first 72 that rock up, so we were dutifully there
well before opening time sitting on the numbered seats. As they only take parties
of 12 at a time there would have been a long wait till the only
English-language tour, so we took the French version. It turned out to be fine
as the guide spoke good English and was so full of enthusiasm it was
infectious. It is interesting to note that many of the paintings take advantage
of the natural contours of the rock to give a 3-D effect. But they are very
hard to see without the guide pointing them out and waving a torch over them so
that the shadows catch their features.
The area is
incredibly scenic and clearly very popular in the summertime given the number
of restaurants, camping grounds and accommodation signs all over the
countryside. Few large towns, forests everywhere, and two big rivers snaking
through gorges. This is the home of Foie Gras, walnut plantations and
prehistoric cave dwellings. And lots of chateaux.
Let’s start
with food. French fare ranges from the sublime to subpar. Except for the larger
towns or tourist areas, getting a basic takeaway sandwich/filled baguette isn’t
always that easy, and a dry baguette with a thin slice of ham isn’t that
appealing. Luckily there are plenty of restaurants around if you don’t mind
spending just a little more. But what is it about the French and their coffee?
If you are not into an espresso then it is either a long black (a café américain)
or similar with milk (café au lait), neither impressive. Don’t even think about
a cappuccino (they have heard of them but can’t make them properly) or a latte,
flat white etc. Luckily the compensation is the cheap wine. Our real find of
the trip was when things were getting a little desperate for Janos’ birthday
dinner. We headed out to a local restaurant that we had tried a few days
earlier only to find it closed due to lack of reservations. We then covered
quite some distance on back roads to where we had heard there was another,
but that turned out to be a bit over our budget. Using the GPS to find us a another
restaurant we spent more time on the tiny lanes before arriving at a
lonely hotel in the middle of nowhere. But the restaurant was open, prices were
good (23 euros for the 5-course menu) and we proceeded to stuff ourselves with
soup, a variety of foie gras, duck, more duck and desserts. Stuffed full after
the first two courses we struggled on politely so as not to cause any offence.
Spectacular meal though quite a lot of groaning ensued later.
More irresistible
food was found at the local markets which included numerous foie gras sellers and
everything possible you could make from walnuts, from oil to cakes. Janos usually
managed to get through a meal’s worth of freebie samples from these stalls.
Sadly most of our intake came courtesy of the major supermarkets as we were
self-catering.
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